I4t 
Rev. George Webbe, Rector of Bath and Bishop of Limerick. 
By the Rev. C. W. SHIckLe, M.A., F.S.A. 
(Read February 25th, 1908.) 
Tn the wilds of Wiltshire, amid a broad stretch of well-tilled 
fields, lies a cluster of houses which date from Tudor times, and 
these have succeeded far older residences, for in the days of 
the Romans, when wood was plentiful, it was Verlucio, the 
Roman station, where the iron was smelted. Now it is 
Bromham, known to the world as the last resting place of that 
charming Irish bard, Thomas Moore, who for thirty-four years 
lived at Sloperton, a pretty rustic cottage at the extremity 
of the parish—-and here, too, it was that Collinson, the 
‘historian of Somerset, was born in 1757, his father being 
then curate of the parish although Collinson makes no mention 
of Webbe in his history of Bath. Of the origin of the name 
Bromham, I am ignorant, but so it was called in the reign of 
Edward the Confessor, when Harold held it, and it then 
naturally passed into the hands of the Monks of Battle Abbey, 
after the defeat at Hastings; and thence arose the name of 
Battle House, where Napier wrote his history of the Peninsular 
War. Here in the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, in 1597, 
died Hugh Webbe, who had been for many years Rector of the 
Parish. In his day the Baynton Chapel was in all its beauty, 
and I trust was an object of delight to him, though it soon 
after suffered from neglect, as the names of the school children 
cut upon the monuments date from the reign of James I. 
At Bromham, George Webbe was born in 1581 ; the name 
of his mother is unknown, and so, too, is anything about his 
father’s family, but the name of Webbe was not uncommon 
in the neighbourhood, and their merchants’ marks show they 
were connected with the wool trade. George Webbe entered 
first at University College, Oxford, in 1598, that is the year 
after his father’s death, at the very time when the careers of 
many young men are wrecked by such sudden loss. We may 
therefore suppose that the Webbes were possessed of some 
means. At University College he only remained a short time, 
removing, upon obtaining a scholarship, to Corpus Christi 
College. Of his University career we know nothing. He 
must have made friends in high places, as his writings are 
marked by a spirit of unostentation, which would not be likely 
to attract the notice of a man of James’s habit of mind. 
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